Another
member of the 1/5,
Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr, rejected a $24,000 bonus to
re-enlist. Corporal Starr believed strongly in the war,
his father said, but was tired of the harsh life and
nearness of death in Iraq. So he enrolled at Everett
Community College near his parents' home in Snohomish,
Wash., planning to study psychology after his enlistment
ended in August.

But he
died in a firefight in
Ramadi on April 30 during his third tour in Iraq. He
was 22.

Sifting
through Corporal Starr's laptop computer after his
death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the
marine's girlfriend. ''I kind of predicted this,''
Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. ''A third time
just seemed like I'm pushing my chances."

The paper's excerpt of Corporal
Starr's letter leaves the reader with the distinct
impression that this young Marine was darkly resigned to
a senseless death. The truth is exactly the opposite.
Late last week, I received a letter from Corporal
Starr's uncle,
Timothy Lickness. He wanted you to know the rest of
the story—and the parts of Corporal Starr's letter that
the Times failed to include:

"Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in
Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing
this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm
pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies
but few get to do it for something as important as
freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's
not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they
can live the way we live. Not have to worry about
tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want
with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have
died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

Reader Michael Valois questioned
the Times' reporter,
James Dao, [Email
him, email the
Times ombudsman] about his selection bias and
forwarded me the exchanges. A defensive Dao (who did not
respond to my e-mail inquiry) argued "there is nothing
'anti war' in the way I portrayed Corporal Starr." Dao
then had the gall to berate the reader:

"Even
the portion of his email that I used, the one that you
seem so offended by, does not express anti-war
sentiment. It does express the fatalism that many
soldiers and marines seem to feel about multiple tours.

Have
you been to Iraq, Michael? Or to any other war, for that
matter? If you have, you should know the anxiety and
fear parents, spouses, and troops themselves feel when
they deploy to war. And if you haven't,
what right do you have to
object when
papers like the New YorkTimes try to
describe that anxiety and fear?"

And Dao's dead-wrong about Corporal
Starr's presumed "fatalism." If you don't believe
Corporal Starr's own words, which Dao chose to ignore,
listen to Corporal Starr's father, Brian. I asked him
this week whether his son was fatalistic. "I don't
agree at all. Jeff had an awareness of death, but was
very positive about coming home."

Dao apologized to Valois for the
tone of his snippy e-mail, but apparently feels no shame
or sorrow for distorting a dead Marine's thoughts and
feelings about war, sacrifice and freedom.

Will the Times correct Dao's
grave sin of omission and apologize? Or will the paper
just hope you shrug and look the other way?